CEE Chair Message – 2008

The Civil and Environmental Engineering department is the oldest department at the School of Engineering and precedes the founding of the original College of Engineering. Tufts University introduced the first civil engineering courses in 1865. Students in this three-year degree program focused on the practical application of their engineering skills, including field projects on campus and in the surrounding area.

More than 100 years later, our students still have a practical orientation but for problems that 19th-century students couldn't have imagined. From current problems in infrastructure and geohazard engineering to water resources and environmental health, civil and environmental engineers are required to apply their skills more broadly than ever before. Fundamental engineering knowledge is crucial for understanding design flaws behind tragedies such as the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35 west bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 people. Prevention of future problems can't be left only to improving our designs. Civil and environmental engineers must be involved in policy decisions that affect how we invest in both the environment and our infrastructure. Concerns of sustainability raise the need for both environmental and infrastructure engineers to broaden their scope of knowledge and take a systems-based approach to societal issues.

Today's Civil and Environmental Engineering students focus on fundamentals with practical applications. Annually, the ASCE student chapter participates in Student Steel Bridge Competition, which allows students to participate in a small-scale version of a real-life engineering consulting situation. Our department also takes our students well beyond the ivy-tower of higher learning to implement learning outside our campus and outside our country. Through student-run organizations like Tufts' chapter of Engineers Without Borders, undergraduate students have traveled to Ghana, Tibet, Ecuador and El Salvador to partner with communities and improve their quality of life. This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while developing and training our students to become internationally responsible engineers. With innovative graduate programs like WSSS (Water: Systems, Science, and Society), Tufts students have traveled to Ghana, Kenya, Mauritania, Lebanon and elsewhere to improve environmental and water resource conditions.

The department has in turn benefited from some of its distinguished alumni. In 1989, John A. Cataldo (E'46), currently an executive at The Gutierrez Company real estate developers, established a full-tuition scholarship to be awarded annually to one or two meritorious civil and environmental engineering students. Jonathan Curtis (E'69, G'72) is an environmental engineer who serves as president and CEO of CDM Federal Programs Corporation, a subsidiary of engineering consulting firm Camp, Dresser, and McKee, Inc. Curtis, who also serves on the school of engineering Board of Overseers, established two graduate fellowships at Tufts. Glenn R. Bell (E'74), CEO of engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz, and Heger (SGH), has routinely supported the department through lectures and internships. Peter Cheever (E'75), executive vice president of LeMessurier Consultants, has regularly supported CEE department activities by teaching senior-level engineering capstone courses. James Stern (E'72), chairman of Tufts' Board of Trustees, has been a continual supporter of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, as well as the School of Engineering and Tufts University as a whole. Our department's success is truly a measure of the success of our students.

Looking toward the future, the Civil and Environmental Engineering department seeks to be a leader in issues of sustainability for built and natural systems. Through progressive research labs like Dean Linda Abriola's IMPES (Integrated Multiphase Environmental Systems) Research Laboratory and WeREASON (Water and Environmental Research, Education, and Applications Solutions Network) we are looking to bolster our environmental and water resources research capabilities and bring our department to the leading-edge of civil and environmental engineering research. In addition, our faculty continues to expand the classic definition of civil engineering for the built environment from bridge engineering to structural health monitoring; geo-hazards and earthquake engineering to landslides, floods and droughts; air-rights developments to soft-tissue research in biomedical engineering; and use of synthetic materials for sustainable infrastructure. Our faculty is conducting research to solve 21st-century disciplinary and multidisciplinary problems in environmental, geotechnical, and structural engineering, water resources systems, and environmental health policy.

As Chair, I will take this opportunity to continue to move the civil and environmental engineering department forward in supporting the students, faculty and staff to promote excellence in teaching and research.

Masoud Sanayei